Deserted
by MorganLeFay33
Summary: "If she does leave, in a flurry of orange hair and possibility, Sarah never wants to hear from her again."


**Deserted**

* * *

Sarah drops the heavy machine onto the bed and steps back to take a look at it, grimacing at the thought of the stridently upbeat clacking noises it must make. The gears in her mind turn in the same way the insides of that monstrous thing must shift with every line.

She had been sweet and quiet when she'd arrived, like a foal that could be spooked with the slightest movement. An unassuming shadow, she'd blended easily into the house, her presence sensed only through neatly folded creases in bed sheets, through gentle greetings and eyes cast downward. Sarah knows better, for she can clearly see the way her thoughts outstretch the seams of her apron, growing out of it until it threatens to rip wide open at any moment.

Sarah groans at the weight of the typewriter in her arms as she carries it down the stairs, craning her neck to ensure that each toe of her boots comes down on each step in precisely the right place. She feels light as air when she releases it onto the kitchen table, wanting to twirl around in circles at the floaty, free feeling in her arms. She may as well have opened all the windows and the doors. She can almost feel a breeze flowing through her.

Sure enough, they come flocking one by one, inspecting it, and she watches them as each is forced to reacquaint themselves with the perjurer who calls herself a housemaid. Sarah delights in the miserable twist of her shocked and humiliated face. There comes a time when one must learn the difference between what is and what cannot be, to learn that the reveries kept hidden away in bedrooms lose their shimmer in the plain light of day.

Sarah hopes that she'll remain here until her broken body has become too tired for adventures and her mind incapable of absorbing new things. Sarah is comforted by the cozy thought of the typewriter collecting a thick layer of dust.

If she does leave, in a flurry of orange hair and possibility, Sarah never wants to hear from her again.

* * *

Sarah tries to focus on the washing, but she can't help the cackle from escaping her lips. She never ceases to be amazed at the way girls throw themselves at young men, thinking it all means something. She stirs the fabric in the giant pot of hot water, straining to move it all in endless circles. Sarah wipes the steam from her brow and grins.

She'd started out brash and arrogant, giving little thought to consequences. Sarah had never met someone who so badly needed a lesson or two in humility. Sarah had reveled in the sight of her confused and embarrassed face upon her return from the upstairs dinner party. Yes, that had been fun, but it was not why she'd done it. It became a private joke, shared between Sarah and her lady. She liked the wicked little smile that overtook the countess' face, the way her eyes glimmered like those of a misbehaving child. For one moment in time, they were equals, friends even.

She's always proclaiming that she wants to leave service, that there must be more to life than that. Perhaps she'll take to the stage, become a famous actress. Sarah takes a moment to lean against the pot and look down into its swirling depths. She laughs to herself bitterly.

The man was a prick, a real scoundrel. She's vain, and her loud-mouthed head has become too big for her body. They deserve one another. If only Mrs. Hughes hadn't found them so quickly, had given them a bit more time to do the deed properly so that she'd get herself into real trouble.

Sarah resumes her stirring, scolding herself for the thought. No baby deserves that twit as a mother. She doesn't know what would be worse – a child who has to live with her or a child who never had the chance to live at all. But she does know which one has infested her mind like a parasite, which one torments her in the wee hours between darkness and light, which one gnaws at her soul like a malicious, hungry specter.

When she leaves, in a flurry of orange hair and possibility, Sarah never wants to hear from her again.

* * *

Sarah disciplines herself to keep it at bay most days, but there are moments when the thoughts come seeping back into the corners of her mind. It's particularly dangerous when she's sat in front of the mirror at day's close, watching her long brown hair uncoil around her. Her eyes lock with the sharp blue ones staring back at her, and she feels the blush creeping down her neck as she follows its trail to the roundness of her breasts, still pushed up by her unloosened corset. She runs her fingers lightly above them, tracing the ups and downs of her chest until she sighs and unlaces her corset to ready herself for bed.

There was a time when she had filled her hours with dreaming, when she would close her eyes and allow her hand to trail further downward, to imagine her skin being worshipped by some divine creature who would make her quiver and cry out in unadulterated, soul-shattering ecstasy. There was a time when she had filled her days with hoping, envisioning the moment when she would spring forth like a pear tree blossom and envelop her lowly superiors in her own loveliness, when she would settle all retributions and shower gifts and favors upon the ones she had left back home. She had been younger then. She had been foolish.

Sarah knows now that her time has passed. She is made of flesh and blood - an unremarkable, mortal woman, just like every other unremarkable, mortal being in this world. More than that, she is fading, wilting, rotting like an aged stump. The glittering girls pop up around her every day like snowdrop flowers, stretching their little gossamer fairy wings. Sarah has missed her flight, and she is stranded here on the ground, in this dirt.

Sarah was very nearly airborne once. She thinks of the face while she combs the knotted tendrils, allows herself a fleeting memory of fiery locks, pale green eyes, a dimpled smile, a scattering of freckles too tiny to be seen from afar.

She was always making things. She didn't make things the way Sarah did. Sarah's sewing was neat and practical - stitches in straight and firm lines. No, she embroidered beautiful designs onto pillows and handkerchiefs and stockings – little roses and singing bluebirds, tiny crescent moons and teacups. When she wasn't sewing, she was pressing flowers into books of poetry, playing airy songs at the piano, making sketches of horses, plaiting her hair into intricate patterns.

Sarah was clumsy and short-tempered, with a blundering gait and a smart mouth and the tendency to slip up and choke on her own cigarette smoke if she didn't inhale carefully enough. And yet, she was fragile. She thought she knew so much, had amassed so much experience in her short lifetime, just because she had known the rough touch of rough men, and of rough women. Sarah knew how to bend rules, knew how to be devious and scandalous and cross boundaries that are never meant to be crossed. She hadn't been prepared to fall in love. She didn't know how.

Their first time together started out awkwardly, in the cramped bed they shared as housemaids. Sarah didn't know what to do with such beauty, for she'd never truly had it before. She didn't want to hurt her, didn't want to make her feel degraded or defiled. She wanted to show her adoration through tender touches and kind words, but Sarah wasn't any good at that. Sarah tried to be gentle, listening to her breathing as if she were listening to the sounds of the sea in a shell. Sarah stripped herself of all garments and guises, and for once had the courage to let her eyes linger in another's for a smidgeon too long for comfort, to whisper terrifyingly honest words without a hint of sarcasm. A year passed, and Sarah was enveloped - a slave to the quiet submissiveness of the lovely girl who shared her quarters. For the first time, Sarah didn't feel good enough.

Sarah blows out the candle, steps out of her slippers, and crawls into bed. A residual flash of light bounces behind her closed eyes, and she paints a picture of their day in the green hills. They ate jam and scones above the town, while she wove a chain of daisies into Sarah's dark hair, humming a lilting Irish melody and promising that they would one day become real ladies together. She upheld her own end of the promise, for as it turned out, young lawyers could become just as captivated by those dimples.

Sarah curses herself for the tear that rolls down her cheek in the darkness. She hates herself for having pity on the memory of the pathetic young girl who sat brooding on the boulder outside the house, wiping her snotty nose on her sleeve, and watching until the carriage finally disappeared from her line of sight.

She left, in a flurry of orange hair and possibility, and Sarah never heard from her again.


End file.
